Madame du Pierry

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Madame du Pierry

1746-1789

French astronomer who was the first female astronomy professor appointed at the University of Paris. Pierry collected information about eclipses, which Joseph Jérôme Lalande consulted to study lunar movement. He dedicated his book Astronomie des dames (1790) to Pierry, declaring her a female role model because of her intellectual qualities. She gathered and computed eighteenth-century astronomical data to prepare charts of information about the duration of daylight at the Parisian latitude. Pierry taught a women's astronomy class in 1789.